Three Thousand Questions and Answers Show What Python Programmers Really Want

Sebastopol, CA--Python expert Fredrik Lundh has spent hundreds of hours
in recent years answering questions posted by programmers on the
popular Python newsgroup, comp.lang.python. Python, known for its clean
syntax and object orientation, is a modular language that imports most
useful functions from the extensive library of programming modules that
is distributed with the language. These modules are a collection of
commonly used procedures that can be pasted into a Python script rather
than written from scratch. In his just-released book,
Python Standard
Library, (O'Reilly, US $29.95), Lundh provides tested, accurate
documentation of all the modules in the Python Standard Library, along
with more than 300 annotated example scripts using the modules, based
on the author's work with thousands of questions and answers from the
Python newsgroup.

Python Standard Library distills the best parts from over 3,000
newsgroup messages. As Lundh explains in the preface of his book,
"Maybe someone found a module that might be exactly what he wanted, but
he couldn't really figure out how to use it. Maybe someone had picked
the wrong module for the task. Or maybe someone tried to reinvent the
wheel. Often, a short sample script could be much more helpful than a
pointer to the reference documentation."

Lundh's specialty is providing short sample scripts that demonstrate
the use of a module in a way that programmers can understand. Lundh
explains, "I've worked hard to make the scripts both understandable and
adaptable. I've intentionally kept the annotations as short as
possible. If you want more background, there's plenty of reference
material shipped with most Python distributions. In this book, the
emphasis is on the code."

Lundh's book is a no-nonsense, no-fluff reference work for the serious
Python programmer. Python
Standard Library documents all the new modules and related information
for Python 2.0, the first new major release of Python in four years,
including:

All major forms of data representation

Support for threads and pipes

All important file formats, including XML and HTML

Support for major Internet applications like mail (MIME) and news

Database and persistent storage

Fredrik Lundh, an active member of the Python community and a frequent
contributor to the Python newsgroups, is an expert on the use of Python
with images and graphics and is the creator of the Python Imaging
Library (PIL). Lundh is a principal of Secret Labs, Inc. the creators
of PythonWorks, and integrated development environment (IDE) for
Python.

About O'Reilly

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